


By Ocean’s Pale Side, My Love, My Love

by jessebee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beaches, Established Relationship, M/M, Natural Phenomena, Qui-Gon Lives, Sand!, Slash, Star Wars: The Phanton Menace (post canon), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, because I said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 22:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15850584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: A breath between, a moment to themselves.





	By Ocean’s Pale Side, My Love, My Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sanerontheinside](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanerontheinside/gifts).



 

 

_yet ‘neath shell and strand,_

_we ‘ll seek as we can_

_by ocean’s pale side, my love,_

_my love;_

_by the edge of the ocean, my love._

 

 

 

Sandy beaches, Obi-Wan thought – and not for the first time – were very appealing if the weather was pleasantly warm rather than sweltering and nobody was wearing much in the way of clothing.

Neither of these things were true.

And yet, here he was: struggling up over the sharpgrass dunes and picking his way down onto the ocean side, smack into the broad expanse of treacherously deep, powdery, slippy-slidey white stuff just _waiting_ to turn his ankle and dump him ingloriously onto his arse –

Obi-Wan stopped, twitching his shoulders at the trickle of sweat running down his back. And sighed. And squinted down the beach in the rapidly failing light.

Yes, there he was, sitting cross-legged in the sand by the ocean’s edge. Right where Obi-Wan had sensed he’d be.

Obi-Wan hitched the strap of the carrysack further up onto his shoulder and set off again, trudging toward the water.

 

 Some minutes later he sank down onto sand still damp from the receding tide, and let the carrysack plop beside him. And leaned against his companion’s back and sighed again, more happily this time, and closed his eyes.

“Hello,” Qui-Gon said. His voice was deep and quiet, an earthy counterpoint to the sound of water washing sand, and Obi-Wan felt it as much as heard it.

“Hello,” he murmured back.

They breathed for a while.

“You do understand that it is challenging to meditate alone when one is not alone, former padawan of mine?” Qui-Gon queried, mildly.

Was that a complaint?

Well then, Obi-Wan would give it all the weight and consideration it was due. “You were done,” he stated flatly, and Qui-Gon chuckled. “Besides, I bear gifts.”

“Oh?”

“Hmm.”

Silence, but only of their voices. The ocean muttered, rhythmic and unceasing; and somewhere a bird cooed, and the small lives in the dunes called to one another. A breeze curled off the water, fingering through Obi-Wan’s hair and teasing random strands from Qui-Gon’s thick braid.

“Should I guess?” Qui-Gon asked, his voice a comfortable rumble against Obi-Wan’s cheekbone, barely muted by one layer of cloth. The older man had abandoned every stitch of clothing save his undertunic and trousers, and from beneath his thighs peeped long, bare toes, white and unfairly endearing in the now faint light.

Obi-Wan quite wanted to run a finger along those toes, but he didn’t want to dodge the kick that would follow – Qui-Gon was _very_ ticklish. “Perhaps you can persuade me,” he said, and grinned at Qui-Gon’s groan. “No?”

“After two months – ”

“Fifty-six days, if one is – ”

“ – _two months_ of ‘persuading’ beings far more invested in personal insult than peace initiative, the last thing I wish to do now is have to persuade you, too.” Said teasingly enough, but the thread of weariness running beneath more than matched Obi-Wan’s own.

“Fair point,” Obi-Wan said, relenting, and reached for the abandoned carrysack. The contents clinked as he pulled them out, the sound abruptly sharp over the susurration of the waves. “Here.”

Qui-Gon took the offered bottle, their fingertips brushing as he did. “Aah. Gifts indeed.”

“Hm-mm,” Obi-Wan said, contemplating his own bottle, cool from the insulated sack. “I think the Second Adjunct felt a touch guilty about your so very dignified congratulations and withdrawal. Or perhaps it was panic. In any case, he offered several of these, making quite sure that I understood that they were _not_ a bribe-y sort of gift – ”

“ – and of course you,” Qui-Gon said, his mirth sparkling in the Force, “being the wise and thoughtful Knight that you are, accepted.”

“As you say.” Obi-Wan popped open the rather cleverly attached stopper and heard Qui-Gon doing the same, muscles flexing in his back as he moved. “Cheers, my master,” Obi-Wan said. “To a peace accomplished here.”

“The Force will that long may it hold,” Qui-Gon murmured with deep feeling, and held his bottle up enough that Obi-Wan could touch his own to it.

The contents were definitely alcoholic, but not obnoxiously so. Obi-Wan took a sip and rolled it around his tongue, savoring dark richness and the clean bit of bite at the finish: perfect for a hot night.

He took a few more sips and then stood the bottle up in the sand and put his arm around Qui-Gon’s waist instead, slipping his hand beneath the loose edge of the tunic. Qui-Gon twitched and grumbled, but slid his own hand over Obi-Wan’s, entwining their fingers in a gentle plait and holding them against his belly.

Qui-Gon’s skin was warm and moist, and a little gritty from the sand, and really, Obi-Wan couldn’t think of much more of anything that he wanted in that moment.

Well, excepting perhaps a bed. Making love in the sand was _highly_ over-rated.

“So,” he said, after he’d savored more of the salt air and the smell of warm Qui-Gon. “Why here?”

“Here?”

“Here. This stretch of admittedly pretty but completely, utterly forsaken beach, klicks from anywhere remotely civilized.”

“Aah.” And that was the sound and Force-feel of Qui-Gon laughing again, something there’d been far too little of in the past two months. “Beyond the simple wish to be somewhere alone with my dear one, klicks from anywhere?”

A quiver of happiness rippled up Obi-Wan’s spine. “Well, I suppose … although that simple wish is _**more**_ than enough, you understand.”

Qui-Gon squeezed his hand. “’Why here’ would be because of also desiring a good view of that.”

Obi-Wan’s brow wrinkled. “Of what?”

“That. Look out over the ocean.”

Loathe to move from his comfortable nestle against Qui-Gon’s back, Obi-Wan nevertheless did so, and looked over Qui-Gon’s shoulder. And caught his breath.

Rising above the water’s edge was a moon and a seemingly enormous one, filling more than half the horizon. Similar to a thousand moonrises Obi-Wan had seen on a thousand worlds or more, and yet different. This far from anything civilized, with no lights to interfere and no atmospheric disturbance, the satellite was brilliant white and utterly clear, as if to be touched with fingertips if one stretched only a little.

Probably a rocky, barren mass of some sort, Obi-Wan’s mind cataloged absently, but the rest of him was staring, wide-eyed. Veins of color were appearing on the moon’s surface, branching into existence as if flowing from some vast, celestial pen dipped in the brightest of inks, red and orange and yellow.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” he breathed. “What in the galaxy?”

“The Primus said it’s called the Blooming, and it happens once every decade or so,” Qui-Gon said, just audible above the waves. “When the conditions are perfect. Her ancestors thought it magic, of course, and an omen of the best kind. They have since discovered the cause.”

“Don’t tell me.” Up on his knees, Obi-Wan wound both arms around Qui-Gon’s waist and pressed himself flat against his former master’s back. “Don’t tell me,” he whispered again, tucking his head into the curve of Qui-Gon’s neck and shoulder. “Leave this moment just as it is. Thank you, beloved; it’s beautiful.”

Qui-Gon’s big hands covered his and squeezed, holding Obi-Wan close. “It is. As are you.”

 

*

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I mentioned prompts, and then saner said:  
> “I am however, sitting on the beach again and thinking of that pretty moonrise, so if you’d like to do some sort of, hmmm, romantic post- or mid-mission interlude for QuiObi....  
> Up to you whether established relationship or not yet”
> 
> TA-DAAA
> 
> Thanks to meggory and culturevulture73 for giving it the ol' eyeball.


End file.
